Frederick's Discovery Center set to blur the lines

'Makerspace' provides resources to play, create, tinker

By Victoria A.F. CamronLongmont Times-Call

Posted:
09/11/2013 08:21:48 PM MDT

Updated:
09/12/2013 09:55:26 PM MDT

Instructional technologist Bud Hunt removes an item from a 3D printer at the Discovery Center for Make/Hack/Play inside Spark! Discovery Preschool in Frederick. He worked with the printer on Tuesday while setting up for Saturday s open house. To see a video, visit www.TimesCall.com.
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LEWIS GEYER
)

On Saturday, the school is opening its Discovery Center for Make/Hack/Play, a "makerspace" where students, teachers and community members will come together to take things apart, build new things and learn.

"We thought we should try a new endeavor," Paige Gordon, Spark! head of school, said Tuesday.

The center, also called a makerspace, is in the preschool's library, but it's not a place where anyone will be expected to be quiet. It's going to be part school, part museum and part workshop, said Bud Hunt, an instructional technology coordinator for the school district.

"We're hoping to be a space that is school and isn't school," Hunt said.

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"I don't want to create passions for people; I want to help them find theirs," he said.

The center is supported by a grant from Encana, the natural gas and oil producer, and several local companies, including SparkFun and Kodo Kids. But that support doesn't just mean financial donations, Gordon said.

"It's about leveraging intellectual capital," she said.

During Saturday's grand opening, visitors will be able to disassemble electronics, make furniture out of cardboard, learn how to solder and watch a 3D printer create usable objects in minutes.

Why does a preschool need such a space? While Spark! has a STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) focus, the Discovery Center will be available as a resource for students and community members of all ages.

"It is about constructing and innovating and it could be about taking things apart, too," Gordon said.

Because the center is new, neither Gordon nor Hunt can say what it will become.

"Part of the experience is, yeah, what will that look like?" Hunt said.

Gordon said, "I'll know we've got something going when this room is used a lot."

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